Getting Married in Korea: Of Gender, Morality, and Modernity

by Laurel Kendall

Book Overview

This work explores what it means to be modern and what it means to be Korean in a culture where courtship and marriage are often the crucible in which notions of gender and class are cast and recast. Touching on a number of important issues--identity, romantic love, women's work, marriage negotiations, and wedding ceremonies--Laurel Kendall gives us a new appreciation for how Koreans have adapted this pivotal social practice to the astounding changes of the past century.

Kendall attended her first Korean wedding in 1970, soon after she arrived in the country with the Peace Corps. Years later, as a seasoned anthropologist, she began interviewing both working-class and middle-class couples, matchmakers, purveyors of dowry goods, and proprietors of wedding halls. She consulted etiquette handbooks and women's magazines and analyzed cartoons, photographs, and weddings themselves. The result is an engaging account of how marriage matches are made, how families proceed through the rites, how they finance ceremonies and elaborate exchanges of ritual goods, and how these practices are integral to the construction of adult identities and notions of ideal women and men. The book is also a reflection on what it means to write "Korea" in a complex and ever changing social milieu.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0520202007
• ISBN13: 9780520202009
• Release Date: May 1996
• Publisher: University of California Press
• Length: 269 Pages
• Weight: 0.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.0" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

Learn about Korean society

An at times funny read of the intersection of two cultures. One is the modern consumerist culture, that has taken firm hold in South Korea since the 1980s. The other is a traditional Confucian morality steeped in centuries of lore.Kendall studies this through the ingenious choice of marriages. Here, the Confucian traditions often appear in the form of arranged marriages. Yet she shows how young couples persistently try to sidestep this format.Along the way, a non-Korean reader is also rewarded by many insights into Korean society. Things that an outsider who does not speak the language would simply miss.

Getting Married in Korea

This is a wonderful book for anyone who wants to learn more about Korean culture in general or is looking for info spacifically on weddings. It is easy to read and understand the concepts. Despite being packed with information, the book does not overwhelm.